‘Govt must improve infrastructure to lift education’

Government needs to up the ante in improving education of the youth and their literacy level.

Such improvement should come in terms of better facilities and welfare of teachers as well as strengthening of public tertiary institutions and making their tuition affordable for indigent parents.

The observation was made by the manager, Barack Obama American Corner, Mrs Louise Ekeneme, at the World Literacy Day organised by the Ovie Brume Foundation in conjunction with the Barack Obama American Corner, which shares the same premises with OBF at its Victoria Island annex, Lagos, last Friday.

The Barack Obama American Corner, which was commissioned in 2009, is the Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy that provides access to reliable information about the US to the public.

Mrs Ekenem said the partnership between the two organisations was informed by the need to further encourage literary among children.

Comparing her days in school, Mrs Ekeneme said owing to stable economy, teachers’ welfare packages in public schools then was far better to what obtained now.

She said: “In our schools days, teachers were better probably because the economy was better then. But today, teachers engage in all sorts of things that probably take their time and hamper their commitment to teaching children as in those days. So, there is a drop in the level of education those children get.

“We have children in our foundation that are 12 years and above and yet cannot neither read nor write. We have children that visit the American corner that are six but do better than those at 12 in public schools. So, it has a lot to do maybe with the children that attend these schools or the level of knowledge imparted in them by their teachers.

“A lot of private universities are coming up owing to government’s privatisation initiative but how many parents can afford their tuition. Government should invest more in our teachers and our educational sector. Don’t blame the people in the educational sector, if their salaries are not enough they will definitely look for something else to do to make ends meet. Philanthropists should also contribute more in curbing the decline teachers are giving out to the children.”

She praised the federal government for its various initiatives towards improving the level of literacy.

The OBF Special Project Manager, Christal Ogene, said findings by the foundation, over the years, pointed to the fact that literacy level in public schools keeps declining due to indifference and poor reading habit.

“Through our works with students over the years, we found out they are not reading at the level they are supposed to be. Some of them will fold their hands and say after all, the school keep on passing them from one level to the other. But why is it that people need to read? The purpose is to have basic education, graduate, get a job; and be able to read and communicate well.

“In Nigeria, one of the problems we have over the years is intergenerational poverty. So, we have underprivileged children who lack the necessary skills to get out of that cycle of poverty. They are often engaged in menial jobs which often do not require reading and writing and basic english and arithmetic. But these children need the basic math and English literacy in order to progress.

“The OBF wants to be the pioneer of literacy. We want to say parents, read to your children; buy them books. Let parents, while their children are young, equip them because their only job is to go to school. We want to encourage the society as a whole to show more interest in literacy in children,” she said.

Nigeria is a developing country the governments are putting certain structures in place to encourage literacy. For the children in OBF, we are realise that their literacy level does not measure to their age. We offer assessment test for these kids when they come to us and from every test we d conducted in or literacy programme, we have one or two people that are above average. The remain are below average hence we embarked on series of literacy programmes which reading is also part of.

Maryam Alli an SSS2 pupil of Kuramo Senior College Lagos who participated in a reading session of a book – A City Boy told The Nation she found the book exciting.

She said: “The book told us about a brilliant boy who sustained his brilliance up to the university level. The book was educative and we are telling more children to come join us and share in the knowledge we are acquiring here.”

Muhhammed Alli who joined the OBF Youth Centre at its inception nine years ago, is now an undergraduate of the North American University Republic of Benin.

Alliu recalled his some of his gains with OBF.

“I had a live interview with Channels TV via the help of the centre. The Society for Performing Arts also gave me scholarships to learn dance via the foundation. I also became computer literate and also improved on my vocabulary while the centre,” he added.

The Ovie Brume Youth Centre is a project of the OBF which was formed in 2003 in honour of Ovierhire Kesiena Brume who died tragically in 2002. Its core programmes include art, dance, music, computer literacy, drama literacy and numerical classes, among others.